The present invention relates to a connecting element for sheet pile wall components, such as sheet piles, beam piles, pipe piles and other sheet pile components. Such sheet pile wall components are designed to be connected together to form a wall and, for this purpose, some of these components have a hooked strip profile, a neck and head strip profile and/or a claw strip profile that extends longitudinally along a lateral edge to enable their interconnection. Pipe piles and some beam piles have no such connecting elements so that separate connecting elements must be welded thereto.
Sheet pile connecting elements are known in a plurality of shapes and designs. They are used for interconnecting such sheet pile wall components and, in particular, for interconnecting two adjacent sheet piles, beam piles or pipe piles of a sheet pile wall that are arranged in a line or at a given angle with respect to each other, or for interconnecting three or more sheet pile wall components.
A connecting element for connecting sheet pile wall components that extend with respect to each other at a prescribed angle “x” is known from the Patent Publication DE OS 2,018,119, where “x” is in the range between 90° and 135°. This connecting element is formed, in profile, in the shape of the letter “S” with two oppositely directed hook strips at opposite ends. One of the hook strips is formed smaller than the other, and both engage corresponding hook strips, or so-called “Larssen” locks, of the sheet pile components to be connected.
This connecting element has the advantage that one can interconnect sheet pile wall components extending at an angle, either as a corner section with 90° or with a wider angle of between 90° and 180°.
Improved connecting elements of this type are disclosed in DE 198 51 877; DE 298 21 624; U.S. Pat. No. 6,282,762 and US 2008/0152435. In these references, the connecting elements, viewed in profile, have the shape of a backward letter “S” which allows the sheet piles considerable freedom of angular movement at their points of connection while nevertheless serving to securely connect the respective components.
Common to all these known sheet pile connecting elements is that they are only used in conjunction with sheet pile components having Larssen locks; that is, locks that are formed, in profile, with a hook having a wedge-shaped end portion.
The dimensions of these Larssen locks vary from manufacturer to manufacturer so that one must normally use sheet piles for each wall from the same manufacturer.
DE 39 07 348 discloses a number of extruded connecting elements which are designed for sheet piles with interlocks of the above-mentioned Larssen type, and also sheet pile components having “thumb and finger” type locks. The connecting elements have, for the Larssen locks, variously shaped hook strips which always require shape mating with the locks of the sheet piles. However, the continuous casting production method used to produce these connecting elements permits more diverse shapes of the connecting strips and allows smaller dimensional tolerances to be achieved than with rolled sections.
Thumb and finger type locks are also the subject of U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,753,623 and 7,946,791 which disclose numerous connecting elements designed to interconnect three sheet pile wall components.
The European OHIM Design No. 000617592 and U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,390,415; 7,935,406; 7,955,029 and 7,980,789 disclose various embodiments of connecting elements with so-called “knob and claw” type locks for sheet piles.
There is one further type of lock which is essentially a simple hook, as in the letter “J”, that is normally produced by cold forming metal (steel) plates or sheets. Such hook-type locks are disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 8,047,745; EP 1 688 544 A1; OHIM 00764444; GB 2,131,856 and GB 2,228,760.
Because of the many types of sheet pile locks, civil engineers designing sheet pile walls are somewhat limited in their choice of sheet pile wall components since all of the locks must be compatible for interconnection. For any given project, one type of lock is normally selected and utilized throughout.